Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 90, June, 1875. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ our traveler's course next led him toward Villa Rica, a thriving town situated still farther in the interior, and near the Cordillera of Caaguazu. He sets out accompanied by his Swiss acquaintance. The journey is made in two days and on horseback. Their route in the beginning lies across a small mountain-range, and then through a piece of thick woods bearing an evil reputation as the home of footpads. But the two pass through in safety, for the robbers are either asleep or absent from their haunts. Reaching the head-waters of the Yuqueri, which empties into the Canabe, a tributary of the Paraguay, they skirt the heights of Angostura, where Lopez, after the evacuation of Humaita, planted his batteries, and which he made his final strategic point. Near by, on the right bank of the Canabe, is the field of Las Lomas Valentinas, where the Paraguayan president fought his last great battle. So far, the route had been through an almost unpeopled solitude. In the evening they reach Ibitimi, a village built, as are all the Paraguayan hamlets, in the shape of a square, with its little church in the centre. Here the ravages of war are painfully apparent. Many of the houses have gone to ruin, dismantled piecemeal by passers-by, their owners never having come back from the battlefield to reoccupy them. The surrounding country is charming, and, seated on one side, M. Forgues sketches a cart drawn by oxen which goes by slowly with the declining sun shining on its leather top. An eight-year-old boy of the village, whose attire is limited strictly to a necklace of black seeds, approaches him, looks over his shoulder, and reads aloud the word which he writes under his sketch: "Ibitimi." Returning from his little sketching excursion to where his companion is awaiting him, he observes that he has suddenly become an object of mingled curiosity and respect on the part of the villagers. The cause of this prominence is a mystery to him until he learns that during his absence his friend had spread the rumor that he is a civil engineer who has come to make a definite survey of the line of the Asuncion and Villa Rica Railroad, which, although it was completed only to Paraguari, was originally intended to extend to Villa Rica, taking Ibitimi in its route. Thus become a great man in the little community, M. Forgues is besought by the political chief of the village—a functionary who fulfills the duties of mayor—almost the only male adult in Ibitimi, to command his services. These services are pressed on him with so much warmth that he is fain to seek relief from this persecuting hospitality by announcing his desire to sleep that night under the canopy of heaven. Consequently, a bed of girths is carried out into the public square for his use, a sort of leather ticking is stretched on it, and he sleeps quietly with his face to the stars.

      A long day's journey to Villa Rica lies before our traveler and his companion, and so they rise early while the moon is still brightly shining. They bid the friendly political chief farewell, and take their departure for Villa Rica. As they emerge from the village the moon silvers with its pure light the tops of the palms and of the bushes that line the road. Away from Ibitimi their course lies through a pretty forest, wherein the party is increased by the addition of two Paraguayans on horseback, one of them armed with a long sword, and of a Paraguayan woman, who rides her horse man-fashion. A few miles farther on they come to a vast marsh, a common feature of the topography of Paraguay, and one of the great drawbacks to travel in the country, for when the rains fall these marshes become dangerous and impassable, and the traveler is compelled to go miles out of his way to turn them before he can continue his journey. The lagoon which lies before them on this occasion, however, is empty, and they are thus saved the détour of more than ten leagues which they would be compelled to make if it were filled with water. The sun, dispersing the last vestige of the morning fog, rises in a clear blue sky, and this spectacle they witness from a slight eminence, in front of which extends an immense plain with its limit at the bank of the Tebicuari-mi, the waters of which shine like a mirror.

      M. Forgues now begins to enter a stretch of wooded country in which the solitude of the day previous is replaced by a thickly-settled region, wherein are to be seen in quick succession a multitude of pretty ranchos nestled in the foliage. The day before, on the journey from Paraguari to Ibitimi, scarcely ten persons had been met with, but now they pass groups of men—the fact is more noticeable because of the rarity of men in Paraguay—and women. The men salute the party by removing their hats, and the women with a Buen dia ("Good-day"), uttered with a gracious smile. The whole of this forest is peopled like the environs of Paris. Rancho succeeds rancho at short distances apart, and each shelters under its blackened thatched roof many women and children, of whose number its small dimensions give no idea. In the towns the houses need to be large to protect their occupants from the heat, but in this forest the people live in the open air chiefly, entering their hovels only to sleep, be it during the day or the night. In strange contrast with the humble aspect of the houses is the heavy silver pitcher, weighing at least two pounds, from which M. Forgues is given to drink by the owner of one of the huts of whom he has asked water.

      Leaving these cheerful forest-homes behind him, our traveler fords the Tebicuari-mi, which rises in the cordillera where are gathered the yerba-leaves from which is made the maté. The water at Paso de Itape, as the ford is called, is shallow enough to permit the party to walk their horses through it, although usually the passage is made on the flat-boat and the two long canoes which are tied to the bank near by. The ford derives its name from the village of Itape, which lies a short distance beyond—a pleasant, prosperous hamlet with cultivated lands surrounding it, and built in a square, with its church and its bell-tower in the centre. The space at the entrance of the sacred edifice is covered with sweet, fine grass, and contented-looking oxen and horses browse at the foot of the wall.

      It is the breakfast-hour, and M. Forgues and his companion stop in front of the first house they reach as they enter the village and utter the traditional Ave Maria, thus requesting the hospitality of the owner. In response, from the shadow of the verandah in which he is seated comes a tall, superb-looking, bearded man, who replies, "Sin peccado concebida" ("conceived without sin"), which indicates that the hospitality asked for is granted. When the Paraguayan gives this response to the invocation of the traveler, the latter may consider himself at home; and so is it on this occasion with M. Forgues. His host proves to have been one of that body of the Paraguayan army, eight or ten thousand strong, which, besieged by the Brazilians in the town of Uruguayana in 1865, at the very beginning of the war, became prisoners when the town was surrendered. They fared far better than their unfortunate fellow-soldiers, for, sent to Brazil, they remained there four years before they were exchanged. In addition to this, they returned to their own country more instructed and more civilized than when they left it. It is to this long relief from the perils of battle, by which the troops drawn from the department of Itape were so generally spared the fate that overtook their comrades in the field, that are due the evident prosperity and the large male adult population of the district, as M. Forgues observed it. His host of the rancho is as gracious in manners and as affable as it is possible to be, and serves up for breakfast a soup of Indian corn, a chicken fricasee and some delicious bread of crusty chipa—a frugal meal assuredly, and one entirely out of keeping with the richness of the service of silver plate which burdens the table, and which, worth fully two thousand francs, includes three large plates, an enormous dish and several massive mugs. The spoons and the forks, however, are of more modest material, for the former are made of horn and the latter of iron.

      After a brief siesta M. Forgues and his companion resume their journey toward Villa Rica. Under a shed on the roadside they see a dozen women, all talking at the same time, and engaged in grating manioc-roots in pails of water. The mixture thus obtained composes the dough of manioc. This dough is very white, and is made into small balls which are pressed between the hands—an operation which, when completed, constitutes the entire process of making a coarse kind of bread, not at all of delicate flavor, called galetta, which is furnished to laborers of both sexes. Under another shed a young girl with a complexion like bronze is seated before a loom weaving, with a light and elegant shuttle, a hammock out of the cotton thread of the country.

      Evening is about deepening into night when M. Forgues arrives at Villa Rica. His host in the town, a prosperous shopkeeper, invites him to dinner, and at the table he meets the mistress of the house, a tall, handsome Paraguayan woman, who receives him and his fellow-traveler with polished courtesy. She belongs to the class of the posterity of the old Spanish colonists. She is dressed in a long calico dress with a white train, and with a row of small red buttons down the front. СКАЧАТЬ